Remains of Kentucky WWII soldier will return home after being missing for seven decades

About three years ago, Louisville resident Diana Reinhardt got a call from Fort Knox.

She and her sister were asked to submit DNA swabs in hopes it might be a match to the remains of a World War II soldier long since lost after he was killed in action seven decades earlier. It was.

U.S. Army Pfc. Charles W. Wells, a Leitchfield native, was an infantryman who served in Southeast Asia, specifically the China-Burma-India theater. His unit, named Task Force Galahad or more commonly Merrill’s Marauders, fought in the Siege of Myitkyina in Burma, the country now known as Myanmar.

The airstrip at Myitkyina, then held by Japanese forces, was considered vital to continue supplying Allied Chinese troops at the time. The facility was seized, but at great cost.

At the start of the operation in late April 1944, there were three Galahad battalions composed of 1,400 men. By Aug. 3, when the airfield was captured, barely 200 of the original force remained, according to the U.S. Army Special Operations History Office.

At the age of 21, Wells was among the dead, reportedly killed in action June 30, 1944, according to an obituary in the Elizabethtown News-Enterprise.

For Reinhardt, one of Wells’ few surviving relatives, the news came as a complete surprise. She had never known of her uncle’s fate, or even that he existed, Reinhardt told the Herald-Leader in an interview.

Now, after more than 70 years, Reinhardt will finally be able to give her uncle the burial he deserves.

In a news release, the Army announced Wells will be interred Nov. 16 at the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery in Radcliff. Chism Family Funeral Home is handling the graveside services following the interment.

“I just think he deserves the honor that he probably didn’t really receive then,” Reinhardt said.

The massive effort to return America’s World War II dead

The living legacy of World War II is quickly disappearing.

The men and women who served are now in their 90s or older. Just 119,550 of the 16 million Americans who served are still alive as of this year, according to the National World War II Museum, which cited data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The mission to repatriate America’s dead began almost immediately after the war ended and has continued for decades since, but logistics made it prohibitive during the war. According to a publication from the National Cemetery Administration, “The delay was borne out of the necessities for planning and procurement of necessary manpower and resources unavailable during combat operations.”

Needless to say, it was a massive and daunting task. American casualties remained unaccounted for around the globe, some where they had fallen, some in the depths of oceans and many in temporary cemeteries, according to the country’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).

As part of a broader program, the Army created the American Graves Registration Service to comb battlefields, aircraft crash sites and temporary cemeteries. Once recovered, remains were sent to the Central Identification Laboratories, where technicians identified more than 280,000 individuals.

After the initial program concluded in 1951, the Army Mortuary system continued to recover small numbers of missing WWII dead, according to DPAA. Efforts to recover missing personnel have continued in the decades since.

Once recovered and identified, the dead were buried according to their next of kin’s wishes. An official wartime policy against transporting the remains of the dead until hostilities ceased further extended the mourning process for families.

“They received an initial notice of death along with word that decisions on final interment would come later. After the war, families received a questionnaire along with the detailed 1946 Quartermaster pamphlet, ‘Tell Me About My Boy,’ explaining burial options,” the National Cemetery Administration’s publication on the topic states.

The War Department, today the U.S. Department of Defense, even commissioned films such as Decision (1946) to explain the process.

Loved ones had the option of leaving remains overseas in permanent cemeteries maintained in perpetuity by the American Battle Monuments Commission, having them returned or having them sent to a foreign country for burial in a private cemetery. Families often had to wait years — between two and five years minimum, depending on when their loved one was killed — for final burial.

In Kentucky, the remains of several World War II dead have been repatriated in recent years. Some examples include:

• Floyd D. Helton enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17, obtaining his father’s permission to do so. Six months later, he was killed while aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma when Japanese warplanes bombed the battleship during the attack on Pearl Harbor. His remains were brought home in 2021.

• Pfc. Berton J. McQueen was badly injured by artillery fire while fighting German troops in France in 1944. He succumbed to his wounds in a makeshift aid station set up in a barn and was buried in a garden. Dead at 20, he was accounted for more than 76 years later. In 2021, he was reburied in Jackson County.

• Pfc. Thomas F. Brooks was taken as a prisoner of war and endured the 65-mile Bataan Death March. He died in late 1942 at 23. In October, he was buried near his childhood home in Mammoth Cave National Park.

• Pfc. Joe C. Brooks was killed at 19 in the Battle of Troina in 1943. The battle was part of a broader invasion of Sicily aimed at liberating it from fascist control. He was buried in Elizabethtown in September.

• Pfc. Henry C. Wade was killed during a 1944 battle with German forces that lasted for several days. He was 24 years old. Wade will be buried Nov. 29 in Russell Springs.

Recognized and honored

Reinhardt never got the chance to know her uncle. Wells lived and died before she was born, she said.

Although she’s tried to find out more about him, Reinhardt hasn’t had much luck. She knows Wells was a mechanic in Leitchfield before he joined the Army, but she’s found little beyond that.

Reinhardt called the opportunity to have an honorable burial service for him “overwhelming.”

“I just want him to be recognized and honored,” she said.